The Queen of Catford
Tags: residential, timber, refurbishment
Related projects: The Rye Apartments, The Hoover Building , Barrett's Grove
- Client: Catford Regeneration Partnership Limited
- Architect: Tsuruta Architects
- Photography: Ståle Eriksen
- Completion: 2021
- Value: Confidential
- Size: 510 m²
- Expertise: Structures
Acting as a catalyst for future development, Webb Yates Engineers worked alongside architects Tsuruta Architects to provide the structural design to develop an attractive pre-regeneration housing project in Catford Town Centre in South London.
The new scheme comprises five apartments that have been created within a micro development on a small infill site. Located on Catford Broadway, the new residences have been squeezed above and behind two existing shops by refurbishing and extending a pair of terraced houses. The building has been designed to transform an alleyway into a small boulevard, with large windows at ground level to enliven the pedestrian route through to a car park.
An external staircase ascends the development, it is wrapped in a metal screen that has been perforated with hundreds of cat-shaped holes, revealing the movement within. Laser-cut cat-face steel plates are used to create a zigzag-shaped balcony that projects out over the street below.
Internally the architect deployed a plywood digital fabrication method to create furniture, storage, mezzanine stairs and kitchens. Door handles, coat hooks and kitchen cabinet, concrete pad stones and more are all shaped with a cat motif, with 27,620 such references across the development’s interior and exterior.
Awards
- RIBA London Awards 2023, shortlisted, 2 2023
- Dezeen Awards 2022, Housing Project, longlisted, 8 2022
- New London Awards 2021, Dwelling, shortlisted, 9 2021